Most of the time It's hard to get the sound I'm after because I have to have the amp too loud. Even though being loud is no problem I rather play at a decent ear saving level. I've been looking at power attenuators and could use any useful info about them. Are any of you using one? There are so many different ones with different features it gets confusing. I just want to preserve my tone and play at a lower volume.
 
Thanks
 

Never used one, but after seeing a commentary by EVH stumbling upon low voltage supplies letting him run an amp at full settings without blowing his head off, a variac transformer is definitely a consideration. His "solution" was simply drop the voltage into the amp to get it to max gain. On paper that is simpler than what some power attenuators are doing (and less expensive in most cases). I forget offhand what voltage he ran, but was something like 80VAC.

i've used a weber mass lite power attenuator with my 60w mesa boogie markIIb head for almost 10 years now.
 
works great.
 
combined with a palmer pdi-09, i can do direct recording in the middle of the night,
with the attenuator maxed out, 
but taking the full output off the amp thru the palmer first,
getting the full power output of the amp as if it were not attenuated,
then running the thru of the palmer into the attenuator, for monitoring at any volume i want.
any recordings you've heard from me in the last 10 years has been mostly the palmer.
the weber is just to control monitor volume.
 
for the purists, buying a low wattage amp for low volume recording is the best,
having a great master volume is second best,
attenuator on large wattage amp for volume control is 3rd.
 
but you'll never get the sound of big iron, using an attenuator, playing at low volume,
and not moving some air.
 

I used a Marshall Power Soak for a number of years worked really well enabling me to push the Power Amp section of my Valve Amp and use it at a sensible volume. Basically it acted like a Master Volume. 

batsbrew
i've used a weber mass lite power attenuator with my 60w mesa boogie markIIb head for almost 10 years now.
 
works great.
 
combined with a palmer pdi-09, i can do direct recording in the middle of the night,
with the attenuator maxed out, 
but taking the full output off the amp thru the palmer first,
getting the full power output of the amp as if it were not attenuated,
then running the thru of the palmer into the attenuator, for monitoring at any volume i want.
any recordings you've heard from me in the last 10 years has been mostly the palmer.
the weber is just to control monitor volume.
 
for the purists, buying a low wattage amp for low volume recording is the best,
having a great master volume is second best,
attenuator on large wattage amp for volume control is 3rd.
 
but you'll never get the sound of big iron, using an attenuator, playing at low volume,
and not moving some air.
 

So I can do this with any DI box and use an attenuator for volume control right?

no, only a special di box.
 

For the past couple years I've mostly used amp sims, but prior to that I used attenuators. I have Weber Load Dumps on a couple of my amps. For me part of the sound is speaker break up and if you attenuate too much you wont get that. I have a Victoria 508 and even around 4 or 5 it's pretty loud - I attenuate it about 20 percent and I still get speaker break up - going into a 12' Weber speaker, but it's a comfortable playing level. 
 
I also have one on a PRS 20 and I don't really over drive the amp, but I can crank it a little higher so it's a bit fuller. The Weber Load Dump is passive and if you use too much attenuation it seems like you lose dynamics. 

yea, load dump is different than the mass lite..
 
mass lite uses a speaker motor as an active load component...
 
moving air is the best.
when you can't move air, either DI to a IR loaded with speaker impulses,
or what i do, a specialized DI with a cabinet filter built in, ala palmer, Radial, etc.

rsinger
For me part of the sound is speaker break up and if you attenuate too much you wont get that. 

This is a good point, especially as there has been a trend towards using more efficient speakers that "break up" at higher volumes. My suggestion here, assuming that the speaker break up effect matters, is to replace the speaker(s) with less efficient ones remembering to get one that is voiced to your taste. Speakers often play a bigger role in guitar sound that people realise.

I've been using a Palmer loadbox (which is a reactive rather than just passive load) and a PDI09 speaker sim DI box for a while without problems. I can't easily, if at all, tell the Palmer from a Celestion greenback or V30 in a cab, depending on the PDI09 setting and after adding a small amount of eqing.

Attenuators are different, they do affect speaker response to an extent.

As for running amps at reduced mains voltage it's not a way to extend the life of the valves, transformers or capacitors. It doesn't reduce the volume much if at all either, certainly not enough to run a 100W head wide open in a domestic setting. Instead it runs the valves in a plate-voltage starved condition which affects how they move into compression/distortion. Unless the amp is cathode-biased and so self-biasing, the power stage bias is going to need adjusting to compensate for the reduced plate and bias voltage, and dropping the voltage too far will make the heater coils operate inefficiently.

A better option for low(er) volume and earlier breakup is a smaller amp. Bearing in mind that the same speaker a 5W amp is about half the volume of a 50W one, and that difference isn't as great as you might think. Which is why sub-1W amps using what are normally used as pre-amp valves as the power amp side of the circuit are popular. Those you can crank, and are often pretty impressive.

Or just run a clean amp at low volume and use pedals for dirt.